Technology Challenged? You’re Not Alone

Thursday, March 28th, 2019     by Debra DuPree Williams     One Comment

By Debra DuPree Williams @DDuPreeWilliams

For a while now, I’ve been having hints that my computer was on its last legs. Never a good thing for anyone, but for a writer—it can be disastrous, especially if your work hasn’t been backed up.

Now, I have an external hard drive that backs up my files every night. I also have a thumb drive that, if I remember to do so, has my files on it. Problem is, I can never remember how to use the thing and I rarely remember to use it in the first place.

Here I am today, working away on things I need to get done this week. My husband waves goodbye to me through our front porch window which opens to my office. I am about to go to my WIP (work in progress) to do a few more edits. Now, hubby had just helped me put other files on a flash drive he had and then I emailed them off to where they needed to be. I told myself, Get him to help you put your files on your thumb drive. But, I got wrapped up in what I was doing and simply forgot.

Black Screen 
I pulled up a page from the internet that I needed when I heard this musical little bliiiip. Black screen stares back at me. I tried everything I knew. Unplug power cord from computer. Reinsert. Unplug power cord from APC. Plug in again. Hit power button. The light flashes five times. Nothing. Okay, time to call in the experts.

I pick up my cell phone and text my son, Adam. Call me. Help!! 

He calls within seconds and I tell him all of the above. I won’t bore you with all the details, but for ninety minutes, Adam and I went through every single action he could think of. I even went to the garage for a small screwdriver and removed the battery pack from my computer, a laptop. We went through several promptings from Toshiba (yes, I have a dinosaur which is no longer made).

We finally decided there was nothing to be done but to either order a new battery pack, or bite the bullet and get a new computer. 

New Computer on the Horizon

In the meantime, hubby comes in and the three of us decide a new computer would be the better choice. But it would be a day or two before that could happen. Work stops. Sigh. I have much to do. Edits and all that. A blog to get out. Heavy sigh.

I put the tiny screws back into the battery case so that they don’t get lost. And I may as well unplug everything. I go to the APC and pull on the cord. It comes out, but isn’t attached to the little rectangular box that houses both ends of the power cord, the one for the APC and the end for the computer. I’m standing there, holding and staring at this cord, and thinking, I never knew that came out of that little black box thingy. 

Blue Screen 
I plug that end into the black cube and the other end into the APC. Then I plug in the other end, the long skinny cord that plugs into the computer. I push the power button and voila! My old computer is booting up. I have a blue screen. Up comes Toshiba. Whew!

When I called Adam to tell him, he burst into laughter. I had visions of him rolling on the floor.  His remark to me was, I should have begun with all of that, but I didn’t want to insult your intelligence. In this case, he should have let the insults fly. And besides, when one is this techie-challenged, nothing can be considered an insult.

So here I am, it’s Tuesday night, and I’m composing my next blog post which will go out Thursday morning. I hope you enjoy an early morning laugh on me. I can tell you, I’m just glad things turned out this way. Techie challenged? You betcha. I guess I wouldn’t be me otherwise.

Does today’s technology frustrate you, give you pause? Share an experience with us. We will laugh with you, not at you, I promise.

TWEETABLE

1 Comment

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  1. Southern-fried Fiction says:
    March 30, 2019 at 8:28 am

    Too funny!! I have a story like that with a photo SD card, before our phones had great cameras. y advice? Invest in a MacBook. You'll love it.

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